@Ragoza @Sideris @FuzzMonster
There's still a few hours to kill before Yvara needs to attend Lesanda in the Great Hearth, so a quick tipple won't kill anyone. The best place to go is right near the Great Hearth as it happens anyway, which works out rather well - and it is this way that Yvara and the others head as they seek a hot meal and a cold beer in these trying times.
The Great Hearth is a large, five-storey stone building in the centre of Stormledge. Surrounded by walled gardens and leafy walkways, this First Age complex pales in comparison to the pleasure palaces of the Realm, but is still the most impressive building that Wei has ever seen in his life. In front of the main gates to the Hearth compound is the Plaza of the Broken Moon, a bustling hubbub of trade and activity, loud with hawkers and traders selling wares and ringed around with finer establishments trading in gold, fine jewels, weapons, and all the exotic pleasures of the West. These are not what first catch your attention, however, for at the heart of the Plaza is a monument equal to anywhere in Creation.
The Tomb of Bann is a wonder of architecture and sorcery, constructed just after the Sundering. a wide, low-lipped pool of water, still and sparkling in the spring sun, takes up the centre of the Plaza. It is circular, and shining white marble from the rim to the base of the pool. Despite its age and public position it is unblemished and undamaged, as though it was built yesterday. The depth of the pool increases from ankle-deep at the edges to over a dozen feet deep at the centre in an inverted step pyramid and an ornate, black jade sarcophagus is clearly visible through the glass-clear water at the lowest point. On the surface directly above the sarcophagus in the centre of the pool the otherwise perfectly still water twists and whirls upwards into a sculpture of constantly shifting liquid. In defiance of nature and time the water forms a sculpture as clear and solid as though it was carved from marble, and light refracting through the water in mad and dizzying patterns seems to illuminate each detail of the sculpture clearly.
It is the form of a young woman, wiry and lithe and wearing archaic pre-Shogunate armour. Her face is regal, yet sad, and she faces away from the Hearth towards the sea as though she means to single-handedly defend it from all comers. Her hair is in a braid down her back to her waist, and each strand is clearly visible and differentiated in the water. She holds a kama loosely in either hand, and she is barefoot. Something of the face reminds you of Abyss, and of Lesanda, but only from certain angles. The sculpture is so realistic and finely detailed that it is like this woman walked across the surface of the water to the centre and allowed it to replace every part of her body. It looks like it could move or speak at any moment, and you know instinctively the Working that created this monument has sustained it for over a millennium.
This, then, is the final resting place of Caerdath Bann, the Tempest of Éa, the mother of the bloodline within Gens Caerdath that would one day split off and form a clan in its own right. Every child in Lastland knows the story of Bann's sacrifice; that she and Caerdath Vinret accepted the Ríastrad from the sorceress Éa in the days before the Sundering even as Éa herself begged them not to, sacrificing their own lives for the power they needed to defend her from the Usurpers as she completed the great work that Sundered Lastland and saved its people.
For a moment, you feel the weight of ages on you, of a history that goes back beyond anything you can imagine, as you gaze into the sad eyes of an ancient hero. Then, it's gone.
There's a tavern called Smiley's nearby. It's clean, doesn't water down its beer, and does a mean steak. It'll do.